The invention relates to a bar gun with dispensing buttons having the capability to remotely operate dispensing devices. Particularly, the invention relates to a bar gun having active and remote buttons with a sensor configuration connected to the buttons that can sense when a button is depressed to in turn operate dispensing devices that are located remotely from the bar gun body, to dispense a beverage component from the bar gun.
Beverage dispensing systems are commonly used in a wide variety of locales, including restaurants, snack bars, convenience stores, movie theaters, and any business where beverages are served. These beverage dispensing systems often dispense a variety of beverages of differing types and flavors, such as flavored carbonated sodas, iced tea, water, or even alcoholic beverages. These devices dispense the variety of beverages either by dispensing a single component beverage or by utilizing a dispensing array, also referred to as a diffuser, through which a single beverage may pass or a base beverage and a beverage additive, flow to a dispense point that facilitates discharge of beverages or beverage additives. The beverage components are then dispensed through a dispensing nozzle into a beverage container.
Some beverage dispensing systems are in the form of a beverage tower while others use a hand-held beverage dispensing handle, commonly referred to as a bar gun. The bar gun uses a single nozzle for dispensing multiple different beverages depending on the needs of the end user. A tower system can have a single nozzle or multiple nozzles for dispensing a beverage. When a single nozzle tower is used, it can be configured to dispense a variety of different beverages using valves in connection with a manifold and system of fluid lines connected to beverage sources for distributing a mixed or single component beverage through a nozzle. Buttons can be used to activate the valves to control the flow of the beverage from the system. The same concept is used with bar guns except that the buttons and valves in conventional bar guns are located in the bar gun itself rather than in the beverage system, which is connected to, but separate from the bar gun. Beverage dispensers utilizing this concept have at least one button, and often numerous buttons, for controlling the dispensing of a single beverage component or multiple beverage components simultaneously.
Conventional bar guns that are configured to dispense a multiple beverage component beverage, such as cola, have multiple buttons each configured to dispense specific components for the beverage depending on the desired beverage. In the example of a cola, the mixed beverage has a soda base and a beverage additive, which is the cola flavoring. There is a soda button, for when an operator desires to dispense only soda that is configured to operate a valve connected to fluid lines within the bar gun to dispense only the soda component. The bar gun has another button for dispensing cola that is configured, by way of a device called a butterfly plate, such that when the cola button is depressed it activates a valve connected to a cola fluid line as well as the valve connected to the soda fluid line so that only the cola button need be depressed, but both the cola additive and the soda base valves are opened to dispense a mixed cola beverage. In the conventional bar gun all the valves for dispensing the beverage components are located in the bar gun handle itself and mechanically connected to the bar gun buttons. This configuration however makes it so only two beverage components can be dispensed at a time.
Some desired beverages may contain more than two beverage components. For example, a consumer may order a cherry or vanilla flavored cola that currently cannot be dispensed with a conventional bar gun without previously mixing the vanilla or cherry with the cola additive and thus requiring all cola beverages to have this added flavor.